


An endless day of endless fun

by TrifectaIII



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, By Dima, theme park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 20:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrifectaIII/pseuds/TrifectaIII
Summary: A wonderful adventure with the comfort of good friends turns sour once the sun falls.Even the happiest places hold a secret.-Dima





	An endless day of endless fun

They say that sometimes there are things you cant explain. A woeful idea in the face of all things, but sometimes, its hard not to believe it. 

Sometimes, those things are so big and obvious that they completely fly under the radar. You can look at it like a mountain. Most often its nothing but a pile of stone and dirt jutting out impudently from the earth as if daring us to pay attention to it, but sometimes deep within its rocky facade it hides a terror so wicked one can do nothing but hope it doesnt escape. Now it might just be methane gas that caused all those mysterious mine disappearances, but you never know if its something far more sinister, like a large amount of cave slime accidentally falling on its hapless victims and suffocating them, or perhaps a horrifying eldritch abomination. 

In this case the large and obvious thing we are talking about isnt a mountain, but a simple theme park. Nothing too nefarious about those unless youre the kind of person who is scared of clowns and carnies, but at least half of those fears are unfounded. Regardless, this is the very theme park our hapless protagonists have decided to spend the day at. 

As far as theme parks go, it isnt the biggest and fanciest, in fact its a little run down. Just nice enough to draw a decent crowd. You could see it from the window of a small hotel room in which four young adults were staying, if you were to look. Distant sounds of screaming could be heard from one of the two roller coasters, and if you had elf eyes, you might be able to see young couples kissing on the ferris wheel. Why you would do that though, is beyond me. 

The young adults in the hotel, however, were not doing that, and with good reason. There was excitement in the air. None of them had ever met in person previously, and after months of careful planning they finally all arrived in washington at the same place at the same time, which as you know, is hard to do when you are all scattered across the country with one of you having to hitch a ride on a boat to the next island so the mail carrier plane can fly you to the airport so you can fly to the mainland. Truly a difficult journey that everyone has embarked on at least once or twice, probably.

In the act of not spying on young couples sharing an intimate moment, these four young adults were preparing to disembark from their humble and temporary home. The young man in a red hoodie and a pair of dark shades by the name of Dave tied on worn down sketchers and sat impatiently by the door. His friends, Jade and John, were too busy chattering excitedly about what was to come to put on their shoes in a timely fashion, and his other friend Rose was still cleaning up in the bathroom.

"YALL move it or lose it, i wanna ride the coaster while theres still daylight shinin." He called out into the small room, standing up and stretching. He wasnt really irritated, he enjoyed every moment with his friends and listening to them talk in person as opposed to just via colourful words on a screen. He was, however, impatient and excited, as they all were. Some people just have problems channeling that into productivity, like an author who keeps switching between 5 different tabs and a chat client instead of working on his story, or someone who meant to come up with another scenario to go with the previous, but was too impatient to do so and instead left some meta.

John stuck his tongue out at dave and jade caught it in her fingers, rousing a startled yell from john, which made her laugh. He stumbled back and rubbed his tongue in an exaggerated fashion. "What was that!!" he demanded. 

"You stuck your tongue out! Isnt that what people do?" She said, wiping her hand off on her long skirt.

"No! its not" 

"Actually" interjected Dave "people do do that sometimes. Usually weird suburban moms."

John mock scowled as Rose left the bathroom. "Is everyone read to go?" she asked, slipping on her shoes.

"Been ready the past million hours Rose cmon lets get a move on." he bounced on the balls of his feet and ran out the door. "Last one to the lobby has to let me draw a dick on them!" he called out, his voice getting smaller and smaller as he ran down the hallway. 

"HEY!" john yelled, grabbing his shoes and sprinting out the door without putting them on. He refused to be the one drawn on, and he knew dave would make good on his promise, consentual or not. They were all staying in the same hotel room after all, and you are about as likely to hide effectively from someone in a space like that as you are to hide a bike horn on someones chair without them immediately noticing upon taking a seat. That is to say, very unlikely.

Rose and jade followed, chatting amicably on the way down. The boys are likely to be impatient, but the theme park wasnt going to disappear overnight. They were certain of that.

Once they reached the lobby it was only a matter of hailing a cab and riding to the theme park. Once there, the joyous music pouring from the speakers and laughs of children seemed to excite even the grumpiest of patrons. Old men with a permanent scowl seemed to light up upon entering the premises, and excited children got even more rowdy. No one was certain where this theme park came from, or how long it had been there, but it was there, and once someone attended, they didnt seem to care about its lack of history and suspicious lack of origins.

All of their faces broke into a wide grin once they bought their pass and entered. It was the kind of park where you paid an entry fee for endless fun on the rides at no extra cost. A veritable miracle of business engineering. The less people have to pay, the more likely they are to come back, the longer they are likely to stay, which means the more food they will buy. Why all other theme parks didnt do this was beyond out protagonists. 

All thoughts of the world faded as they walked deeper into the park, trying to decide on the first ride to take. Dave insisted on the roller coaster, jade wanted to go on the teacups, John thought the hang glider ride was the most intriguing, and rose wanted to see the pirate ship. After much deliberation, they decided a food break was in order, they had left without breakfast, after all, and there was a cafe decorated in jovial green red and purple swirls. All of the food featured was bright and colourful, cookies decorated like clowns, sandwiches made from colourful bread, grilled cheese made with sprinkles, it was hard to chose and even harder for any cheerful attitudes to abate. They decided on cinnamon rolls, however, and apparently each purchase came with a bonus treat of a lollypop in one of the theme parks signature colours, red, green , or purple. 

After eating, Jade convinced them all to go on the teacups with her, saying that it would give them time to finish their lollypops before going on a more hazardous ride. They could even go on twice if there wasnt enough time. Rose tucked her candy into her pocket, hoping to save it for later. 

 

As the day wore on, they made it their mission to go on every ride in the park. Rose however, was feeling the strain. Her three friends had a tremendous amount of energy, and it was difficult to keep up. She briefly wondered if this was in character for them, she had known them for years prior and there was no indication that they were this excitable, but perhaps she had been wrong, or they had been presenting a contrived persona over the internet. It wasnt far fetched. It took every skill of persuasion she had to keep them from running from ride to ride, and something about the atmosphere felt as if it was draining her as well. 

Perhaps draining was a strong word, but the cheerfulness was omnipresent and felt off. She wasnt sure why though. Perhaps she was just hangry, it had been many hours since breakfast, and they were due for some dinner. 

"Hey, maybe we should get something to eat? It's near dinner, and i am hungry." she said, stopping in her tracks. "We could go back to the cafe?"

John, Jade, and Dave stopped and looked back, all beaming at her with irritatingly large smiles. She supposed she was glad they were happy, but she wasnt in the best mood to be happy along with them. Food would fix it, she was certain. It would be a shame to let such an opportunity for fun go to waste. 

After their meal, (she had chosen the grilled cheese with sprinkles, and the rest had opted for another cinnamon roll each) they embarked on the rest of their trip. the sky was growing dark now, a few stars poking through. They were strangely unrecognizable, though she put it down to her being across the country. The rest of her companions didnt seem to notice, still running around with the vigor and energy of a child who had just cleaned out the cookie jar. lollypops in place, they all but bounced towards the pirate ship. Rose hung back, feeling no better than before. She figured rides werent the best places to have a hazardous candy stick dangling precariously from your mouth like a dildo on a bike seat. On wrong move and its going places you probably dont want it to go. she put it in her pocket along with the other. 

Now her friends seemed to have more energy, and it was beginning to legitimately unsettle her. She was certain they werent this excitable and cheerful normally, but how could she tell them to calm down in good conscience? They were happy and having fun, far be it from her right to put a damper on that. She sighed. She would have to suck it up. This week was supposed to be fun.

 

Eventually the sun had long since dipped behind the mountains, the sky glowing an eerie purple. Roses friends showed no signs of slowing down, however she herself was exhausted. Something definitely seemed off. The lights were incessant wicked, they seemed like small pinpricks of suns, casting just enough light to reach into her skull and probe around, but not enough to illuminate anything of meaning save for the ground. The cheerfulness of the place was near suffocating, and she felt like the workers were eyeing her. 

She sighed and called out to her friends. "Hey, I'm getting tired, do you think we could go back to the hotel? I am sure we could return tomorrow. They stopped in their tracks and turned around slowly. Alarm bells went off in her head, something was actually wrong. Very wrong. They should be happy, they were smiling and had been laughing all day, but something about the look in their eyes betrayed malice, and far beneath that, pain. She stepped back instinctively and they looked at each other before pouncing on her. 

A few seconds felt like hours as they wrestled her to the ground with strength she didnt anticipate. She fought back, attempting to break free. She had to do something, these werent her friends. They were being controlled somehow, she was sure of it. She didnt know how or why, but she was certain.

John sat heavily on her stomach, Dave on her legs, and Jade held her hands to the pavement above her head. Peals of laughter erupted from their mouths as John leaned in very close to her face. "We're staying. You are too." He was too loud, too cheerful. His eyes seemed to be begging though, and he moved like a puppet on strings. Had there been something in the food? No, she had eaten it as well, and they had done everything else exactly the same. Soon she realized the only difference was the lollypops. They had eaten them right away, where as she had saved them. She felt them in her pocket, burning a metaphorical hole.

"NO!" she screamed in his face and started flailing wildly in an attempt to break free again. They held fast, and she started screaming for help. No one noticed, no one cared, but the carnies started to take interest in much the fashion a carrion crow would take interest in fresh roadkill, and the harsh shadows cast by the lights seemed to inch closer. 

She was so tired, even the atmosphere drained her. It felt like it was sucking out her energy, like a parasite. She was so so tired. 

The last moment she could remember being in control of her thoughts was filled with the taste of sweetness on her tongue as she screamed.

It was so dark. The night would never end.

**Author's Note:**

> I suck at happy endings. 
> 
> -Dima


End file.
